Panic Disorder
by rubyshards
Summary: SeiferxSquall. Postgame. Squall worries about Seifer when he goes off on missions. For the theme 'distance.'


Squall has been known to worry.

Oh, it's unlike him, sure, and it's something he's not going to admit out loud any time soon, because that would ruin his perfect reputation, and that definitely isn't worth it. He'll pretend that he's not worried at all, he'll pull on the cool, collected mask of indifference, but in reality, he thinks he's going to tear his hair out with worry one of these days. He plays the roll of the cold Commander perfectly, he's been told, but even Selphie has started to figure out the facts about it, and that makes him angry and worried all at one time.

He worries every time Seifer heads off on a mission. It's pointless, and he knows it, because it's Seifer Almasy, and he's positive that the ex-Knight can fend for himself, but that doesn't stop him from sitting up late at night, staring at that empty depression in the other side of his bed where Seifer _should _be, wishing that the blond would just hurry up and get home already. And it's pointless, because Seifer has yet to break the promise that he made, and has yet to leave that bed empty for longer than necessary, but that doesn't seem to stop the worry from getting the better of him sometimes.

Now just so happens to be one of those times.

Squall pulls open the door to his office with a gentle tug, steps inside and looks around the room as if he's waiting for Seifer to welcome him with that slow drawl of amusement that so often greets his ears, and he frowns when he doesn't hear it.

The mission that Seifer has been on has run for nearly three days now, and the twitch in Squall's fingers and the flicker of stormy blue-gray eyes around every corner of Garden in search of the taller blond is starting to get to him. He wishes he could just erase the worry from his mind, just this once, because he hasn't accomplished anything since he's sent the other man off on that mission, and he has a mountain of crisp white letters still waiting his attention.

He hasn't even read any of them yet.

Stepping back from the door, he walks over toward his desk and falls down into the leather chair that Seifer bought him last year, to replace the old one that the previous Headmaster had abused in his years in office ("It smells too much like old man Kramer - you're gonna end up looking like him if I let you sit in that thing for too long, and I can't have that, now can I?"). The cool leather seeps into his sweater (Seifer's sweater, really, but the blonde was always the one to insist that he wear it), and he leans against it heavily, letting it draw his mind away from the circles it's been chasing itself around for the past days.

The desk before him is neatly organized - he's anal retentive, or so Seifer tells him, but he likes it that way, and refuses to change it. Unlike some people, he actually enjoys being able to find where something as simple as a pen is. A stack of completed papers, progress reports for students and issues brought up by instructors, most of them written and signed by Quistis in his place, are positioned off to the far right, and an even bigger stack than that is towering alongside it, but he has no will to turn around and pick them up.

Not when he's worrying.

He hates the fact that he's become so dependent on Seifer, hates the fact that a few simple days worth of distance between them can make him anxious until he can't sleep any more, can't think straight without his mind wandering around and slipping back to him.

Dark eyes dart away from the papers, gliding passed his calendar and the little red scribbles on it that he knows he didn't write, the handwriting is so messy and hard to read ("Get off your ass, Leonhart - you're gonna wither away in this damned room"), and he stops when he spots the edge of the wood. Scuff marks are embedded into the surface, a perfect indent that scoops down in the very center of his desk, and his lips curl up into that faint little grin that he's developed when he notices that even Seifer's footprints have been etched into the woodwork from all of the times that the blonde has insisted that his desk makes a better footrest than workspace.

Although Seifer has found new uses for a desk that Squall would have never thought of.

His cheeks heat up; he tears his eyes away from the edge of the desk, and begins fiddling with the hem of his sweater - Seifer's sweater - with a nervous little twirl of slender fingers that won't rest.

He hates the fact that he's so damned worried. Seifer hates it, too, has told him hundreds of times that there's nothing to worry about, that he swears he'll come home in one piece - or at least two, although Squall hadn't really thought that that joke funny at all, and had proceeded to kick Seifer's ass for that little comment - but Squall still dreads that something might happen.

It's true that Seifer has enemies. He has plenty of them, actually, enough to warrant and justify every sleepless night that Squall tosses his way through, every paper that he doesn't sign because he's too busy thinking off all of the ways that he's going to smack Seifer around once he gets back, just because he's made him panic for so long, and all the ways that he's going to kiss him senseless, because he's left the bed empty for so long. Squall is quite positive that he might just kill Seifer himself one of these days, if Seifer doesn't learn to at least call him during these missions to let him know that the asshole is still breathing.

He sighs, tugs his hands free from the little knots that they've worked themselves into in the edge of his shirt, and he presses them flat, palm down, against the arms of the chair. He uses the provided leverage to climb to his feet, eyes darting over the mound of paperwork one more time in disdain, because, yet _again, _he hasn't accomplished anything useful _at all,_ and he blames Seifer for it.

Slender hands yank through his hair, tug at the too-long strands, and he pulls the sweater closer, and pretends, in some tiny corner of his mind that actually believes in romance and all of that shit that Seifer goes on and on about, that Seifer is the one keeping him warm instead.


End file.
